The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy
()
About this ebook
Throughout the twentieth century, local control of school districts was one of the most contentious issues in American politics. As state and federal regulation attempted to standardize public schools, conservatives defended local prerogative as a bulwark of democratic values. Yet their commitment to those values was shifting and selective. In The Fight for Local Control, Campbell F. Scribner demonstrates how, in the decades after World War II, suburban communities appropriated legacies of rural education to assert their political autonomy and in the process radically changed educational law.
Scribner’s account unfolds on the metropolitan fringe, where rapid suburbanization overlapped with the consolidation of thousands of small rural schools. Rural residents initially clashed with their new neighbors, but by the 1960s the groups had rallied to resist government oversight. What began as residual opposition to school consolidation would transform into campaigns against race-based busing, unionized teachers, tax equalization, and secular curriculum. In case after case, suburban conservatives carved out new rights for local autonomy, stifling equal educational opportunity.
Yet Scribner also provides insight into why many conservatives have since abandoned localism for policies that stress school choice and federal accountability. In the 1970s, as new battles arose over unions, textbooks, and taxes, districts on the rural-suburban fringe became the first to assert individual choice in the form of school vouchers, religious exemptions, and a marketplace model of education. At the same time, they began to embrace tax limitation and standardized testing, policies that checked educational bureaucracy but bypassed local school boards. The effect, Scribner concludes, has been to reinforce inequalities between districts while weakening participatory government within them, keeping the worst aspects of local control in place while forfeiting its virtues.
Read more from Campbell F. Scribner
Spare the Rod: Punishment and the Moral Community of Schools Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Is for Arson: A History of Vandalism in American Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Fight for Local Control
Related ebooks
The Fight for Local Control: Schools, Suburbs, and American Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Furs to Farms: The Transformation of the Mississippi Valley, 1762–1825 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLand-Grant Colleges and Popular Revolt: The Origins of the Morrill Act and the Reform of Higher Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReading, Writing, and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEducation for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Whole Machinery: The Rural Modern in Cultures of the U.S. South, 1890-1946 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783-1829 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoices of Our Ancestors: Language Contact in Early South Carolina Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSexuality, Politics, and Social Control in Virginia, 1920-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAbandoned in the Heartland: Work, Family, and Living in East St. Louis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Imperative of Integration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRace and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830–1870 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCondom Nation: The U.S. Government's Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Seven Virginians: The Men Who Shaped Our Republic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Confederate Visions: Nationalism, Symbolism, and the Imagined South in the Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1914 Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Political Languages of Emancipation in the British Caribbean and the U.S. South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLast Stand of the Louisiana Shrimpers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouthwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis in the Civil War Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComplexion of Empire in Natchez: Race and Slavery in the Mississippi Borderlands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Uplift Generation: Cooperation across the Color Line in Early Twentieth-Century Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe State and the Stork: The Population Debate and Policy Making in US History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLandscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Teaching Methods & Materials For You
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 Love Languages of Children: The Secret to Loving Children Effectively Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Principles: Life and Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack Reacher Reading Order: The Complete Lee Child’s Reading List Of Jack Reacher Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speed Reading: Learn to Read a 200+ Page Book in 1 Hour: Mind Hack, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inside American Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Tools of Learning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Personal Finance for Beginners - A Simple Guide to Take Control of Your Financial Situation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raising Human Beings: Creating a Collaborative Partnership with Your Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speed Reading: How to Read a Book a Day - Simple Tricks to Explode Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (10th Anniversary, Revised Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How You Learn Is How You Live: Using Nine Ways of Learning to Transform Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Closing of the American Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare To Lead Summary: Business Book Summaries Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conversational Spanish Dialogues: Over 100 Spanish Conversations and Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four-Hour School Day: How You and Your Kids Can Thrive in the Homeschool Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easy Spanish Stories For Beginners: 5 Spanish Short Stories For Beginners (With Audio) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From 150 to 179 on the LSAT Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Fight for Local Control
0 ratings0 reviews